Archived News:

Thursday, Mar 08, 2018

Activision confirms the accuracy of recent deductions about Call of Duty: Black
Ops 4 by officially announcing the next installment in the military shooter
series. They say this will launch worldwide for Windows, Xbox One, and
PlayStation 4 on October 12th. They accompany the news with
this teaser trailer of
a brief PTSD episode that includes confirmation of that IIII logo from
James Harden's hat.
They promise more details in a worldwide reveal on May 17th:

Black Ops is
back! In what represents a game-changing experience, Call of Duty®: Black Ops 4
will revolutionize the top-selling series in Call of Duty® history when it
launches worldwide on Friday, October 12 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Call of Duty fans can tune in Thursday, May 17, when publisher Activision, a
wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), and award-winning
developer Treyarch host the community reveal to a worldwide
audience.

Ubisoft officially announcesTom Clancy's The Division 2 following
the inadvertant revelation of plans for
the shooter sequel. The post there is the English version of the statement that
leaked early. They have also posted
a roadmap for the franchise, which they note is celebrating its second
birthday. The roadmap includes plans to support the first The Division, which is
covered in more detail in
this State-of-the-Game update which discusses the next two patches. Here's
word on the road ahead:

The Division’s second birthday is finally here!
We have been hard at work since the launch of the game and have some news to
share with our community. Yes, there is a Division 2 that is currently under
development by Massive! The supporting studios that continue to make The
Division possible - Red Storm, Reflections, Annecy - will also play roles in The
Division 2’s development. More information will be revealed at E3 this year, and
we cannot wait to show the world what we have in store!

This does not mean that work on The Division 1 is coming to a halt. We are going
to continue supporting the game as players look forward to the following
timeline of content:

April - Update 1.8.1, which includes the
Xbox One X patch and the implementation of Classified drop rate changes
discussed on a previous State of the Game. We are also introducing two new
Legendary modes alongside a new Global Event: Blackout.

May - New Global Event: Onslaught.

June - Update 1.8.2, which will introduce
two more Legendary mission modes and bring back Global Event: Outbreak. This
update also marks the beginning of the brand new Shields monthly feature, in
which achievements earned playing The Division will grant special rewards in
The Division 2.

July - Global Event: Assault, with the
continuation of Shields.

August - Global Event: Strike, with the
continuation of Shields.

September - Global Event: Ambush, with the
continuation of Shields.

It has been quite the journey so far, and we are just getting started. A huge
thank you to our community for the support over the years. Here is to the future
of The Division!

Steam News announces
that everyone who adds the
Amnesia collection to their Steam libraries for a limited time (which is
unspecified) will be able to permanently keep both horror games. Here's word:

Add
Amnesia Collection to your account permanently and play for FREE starting now
for a limited time! The Amnesia Collection includes both Amnesia: The Dark
Descent and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. Once you click "Install Game" both
games will remain in your account after the free period, so don't miss out on
this opportunity to play these two dark survival horror games.

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is now available
on Steam, offering a
melee action sequel for Windows. Here's the
release trailer with a
look using only game-engine footage, and here are details on what to expect from
the game:

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is the sequel to the critically
acclaimed Vermintide. The time has arrived to revisit the fierce first-person
co-op slaughter-fest featuring visceral and ground breaking melee action, set in
the apocalyptic End Times of the war-ravaged Warhammer Fantasy Battles world.

Our 5 heroes have returned to take on an even greater threat – the combined
forces of a malevolent and destructive Chaos army and the swarming Skaven horde.
Prepare to be challenged like never before as you and your team desperately try
to survive the never-ending onslaught. Choose between 15 different careers,
climb the talent trees, customize your arsenal to fit your unique play style,
fight your way through a myriad of stunning levels, and challenge yourself in
our new Heroic Deeds System. The only thing standing between utter defeat and
victory is you and your allies. If you fall - so will the Empire.

Steam
now offers Early Access to Dominari Tournament, a real-time strategy game they
call a "micro 4X" game. This
trailer shows things off, and here are more details:

Already the
ruler of a vast empire, you’ve now set your sights on your enemies’ possessions.
Your lust for power has no limits; a whole universe is there for the taking!
Engage in intense 1-on-1 competitive multiplayer combat for the spoils of war in
the addictive, intergalactic real-time strategy game, Dominari Tournament!

EA announces titles from WBIE are now part of the
Origin Access
program, the first non-EA titles to be included in this subscription program.
They are also offering seven-day free trials for the next couple of weeks:

Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) today announced the addition of six
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment titles to Origin Access*, marking the
first major publisher outside of EA to introduce titles to The Vault. Origin
Access members can now play games from the hit Batman™: Arkham series and LEGO®
Batman series. In the coming weeks, more games will be joining The Vault
including the award-winning indie title, The Witness, and a brand-new game, Out
of the Park 19.

The new line-up of games entering The Vault will include:

Available now:

Batman™: Arkham Asylum

Batman™: Arkham City

Batman™: Arkham Origins

LEGO® Batman

LEGO® Batman 2

LEGO® Batman 3

Coming soon:

The Witness

Out of the Park Baseball 19

Lost Castle

Bulletstorm – Lite

Wasteland 2

For players who are not a member of Origin Access, they can try some of these
games and the full line-up of titles in The Vault for free during a seven-day
trial from now through March 26, 2018. Players can also access discounts on
Origin game purchases. To learn more about member benefits, visit
www.origin.com/store/origin-access.

A
financial website called 4-Traders has first details (in German) on
Ubisoft's plans for Tom Clancy's The Division 2, a sequel to Massive
Entertainment's open-world first-person shooter (thanks
GameSpot). The post is purportedly a blog update from Massive creative
director Julian Gerighty. It's not clear why this would appear on this site, but
lending a good deal of credibility to the report is the discovery of
this image on the Ubisoft Website which is clearly a logo for The Division
2. Here is a rough machine translation of part of the post:

However, when
we released our game in 2016, it was clear to us that it was just the opening
chapter of a much bigger saga, so we're excited to share more with you today
about what awaits you in The Division Universe next.

We are very pleased to announce that we are currently working on Tom Clancy's
The Division 2 . The development is led by Massive Entertainment and driven by
close collaboration with Ubisoft Annecy, Redstorm, Reflections, Ubisoft
Bucharest and Ubisoft Shanghai. The Division 2 will be based on an updated
version of the Snowdrop Engine that will help us realize our ambitions for this
title. More importantly, we can also invest all the experience we've accumulated
over the past two years in this sequel to make sure everything is going well.

But that is not all. The division continues. After the celebrations of our 2
year anniversary, we will support the game with 2 more title updates. These will
be 2 brand new Global Events; Include more Legendary difficulty missions and an
Xbox One X update that will rediscover the beautiful and emblematic New York
City with all its stunning details in both 4K and 1080p.

In addition, as of June 2018, players will also be able to play 'Crests', which
are specific achievements that will allow them to unlock The Division 2 rewards.

The teams are extremely grateful for all the support over the past two years and
we can not wait to show you what we have planned for The Division 2 during the
E3 2018 in June.

Reuters has more details on today's planned meeting at the White House with
game industry representatives to discuss attempts to shift blame for gun
violence onto video games. The meeting was called by President Trump who
expressed a need for the kind of rating system for games that's already in
place, though some parents, such as the president, don't heed it. "I look at
some of the things he’s watching," Trump said last week about his 11 year-old
son's media (presumably games). "And I say, how is that possible?" The new report notes additional
attendees and sets an agenda for the meeting, saying it will be the first of
several. There's more on this in
The Washington Post where they also have an unconfirmed list of attendees,
including those who will be across the table in an anti-gaming camp:

Trump has invited video game executives like Robert Altman, the CEO of
ZeniMax, the parent company for games such as Fallout; Strauss Zelnick, the
chief executive of Take Two Interactive, which is known for Grand Theft Auto,
and Michael Gallagher, the leader of the Entertainment Software Association, a
Washington-focused lobbying organization for the industry.

Three people familiar with the White House’s planning, but not authorized to
speak on the record, confirmed those invitees. A spokeswoman for the White House
declined to share a full list of participants on Wednesday. ESA confirmed its
attendance this week, but the others did not respond to questions.

Opposite of them are expected to be some of the video-game industry's toughest
critics, including Brent Bozell, the founder of the Parents Television Council,
and Rep. Vicky Hartzler, a Republican from Missouri, the three people said.
After another shooting — the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Conn. — they each called on government to focus its attention on
violent media rather than just pursuing new gun restrictions.

Oculus is reaching out to customers after yesterday's
outage with help for those who still can't get their Oculus Rift headsets
working, and some compensation for those affected by their system's downtime.
They don't confirm or deny that an expired security certificate cause the
problems, but offer instructions on how to unbrick systems and collect some
credits:

We've just released an Oculus software update that fixes an
issue where Rift may fail to start up. If you're receiving the error “Can't
Reach Oculus Runtime Service,” you'll need to manually update your Oculus
software before you can use your Rift.

To patch your Oculus software, you'll need to download
'OculusPatchMarch2018.exe' at
https://www.oculus.com/rift-patch/. Run the executable, and select “Repair”.
When the update is finished, launch the Oculus desktop app to continue the
update process. Once the update is complete, you'll be able to use your Rift.

A manual update is only necessary if you're unable to start the Oculus desktop
app - if you aren't seeing an error, the system will update itself to the new
version automatically.

We’re very sorry for the disruption today. We’re providing a $15 Oculus Store
credit (or currency equivalent) to people impacted by this issue. If you used
Rift on or after February 1st, 2018 this credit will be added to your account
automatically within the next 7 days. See
this page for info
about Oculus Store credits.

Sorry again for any inconvenience this may have caused, and thanks for choosing
Rift.

Daybreak Games announces H1Z1 is now free-to-play, the announcement coming a
surprisingly quick eight days after
the official launch of
the battle royale shooter.
This post announces the sale of Bronze, Silver, and Gold Battle Royale
packs, and
this post covers the transition to free-to-play, including how to apply for
a refund. They note Steam's refund policy applies, so this will only work
for those who bought the game within the past two weeks and have played for
under two hours. This trailer
celebrates the news, and here are the details, including word on the launch of
the H1Z1 Pro League:

You asked, we heard you.
Experience the game that put Battle Royale on the map and then redefined it with
Auto Royale, for FREE. Yep, you read that right! Starting at approximately 10 AM
PT, you can download H1Z1 for FREE!

You asked, we heard you. Experience the game that put Battle Royale on the map
and then redefined it with Auto Royale, for FREE!

Free to play isn’t the only thing to get hyped about. The H1Z1 Pro League just
confirmed the 15 esports teams that will be participating in the inaugural
season, the official venue location in Las Vegas, and its streaming partnership
with Facebook. More info can be found here

“We are very excited to announce that H1Z1 will be free to play starting
today. Not only does this decision allow us to share our version of Battle
Royale and Auto Royale with even more players, but it signifies the next step in
making H1Z1 a must-watch esport. The Pro League is going to redefine esports
when it kicks off in Las Vegas this April, and whether a person is an aspiring
pro athlete or just wants to play with friends, we want everyone to have the
chance to play the most competitive battle royale game.” -- Anthony Castoro,
H1Z1 General Manager

To thank all of our loyal players who helped make awesome, game-changing
decisions during our time in Early Access, we'll be rewarding everyone who
already purchased the game with the “H1Z1 Appreciation Pack”, containing the
following items:

An MMORPG codenamed Project C will be the first project from Darewise
Entertainment, a developer formed by Thief designer Randy Smith and
Dishonored and Half-Life 2 art director Viktor Antonov. Details are
scant for now, but they say this will be a AAA title, and there's a first
piece of concept art on the Darewise Website, where
they promise more information in the "near future." Here's what they have to say
for now:

Darewise Entertainment is proud to reveal the first glimpse of
its brand-new, massively multiplayer online game, codenamed Project C.

Project C invites the players to explore, conquer and dominate a massive hostile
persistent sci-fi world. The game offers players genuine innovation in game
design with emphasis on emergent memorable gameplay moments: a single-shard
virtual world, continuously updated with new chapters of the game’s story,
containing a fully simulated ecosystem of creatures and resources, in which
player choices create permanent changes.

Project C is creatively spearheaded by the visionary talents of Thief designer
Randy Smith and Dishonored and Half-Life 2 art director Viktor Antonov. The pair
is supported at Darewise by a crew of industry professionals bearing
considerable AAA experience across a number of world-renowned
franchises.

Publisher Paradox Interactive and developer Colossal Order announce Saturday
will be the third anniversary of the release of Cities: Skylines. They
also reveal a milestone, saying the urban planning game has now sold more than
five million units for PC since its launch. They are celebrating by giving all
players a few bits of free content which connect to next week's release of Surviving Mars (Update: apologies for the original version of this article erroneously calling Surviving Mars an expansion). Here are some details:

Over the
past three years, Cities: Skylines fans have definitively proven they can
survive Natural Disasters, heavy Snowfall and self-inflicted anarchy of all
sorts, but the question looms... can they survive Mars?

To celebrate its third birthday and five million milestone, Cities: Skylines
players are getting a new unique Rocket City building called Xchirp Launcher, an
astronaut Chirper, and a new free radio station - Official Mars Radio! Tune into
Mars beginning this Friday, March 9 and jam out to space musical electro songs
like Perfect Wave, Mission Stardust, The Return of Sputnik, Moon Zero Two and
Aiming for Jupiter. As Paradox gears up for the release of Surviving Mars (next
week!) on March 15th, all Cities owners will also get 10 percent off
pre-orders on
Steam.

Paradox Interactive announces the release of Waking the Tiger, a new
expansion for Hearts of Iron IV that adds the Chinese front to the World War II
real-time strategy sequel. You can learn more details or pick this up through
the
Paradox Interactive Website, where they offer
this release trailer
to celebrate the news. Here are the details, including word on a free update
that's also available for all owners of the base game:

Are you ready to
beat back the imperialist aggression of the world’s bullies? Paradox Development
Studio is happy to announce the release of Waking the Tiger, an expansion to
Hearts of Iron IV that makes major improvements to many aspects of the game,
while drawing players’ attention to the Chinese Front.

The Chinese Republic is barely 25 years old and has still not found the unity it
seeks. But now, pressed by Japan, China’s factions might find in war the common
cause that eluded them in peace. New leaders and focus trees for Nationalist
China, Communist China, the warlord states and the Japanese vassals add more
depth and history to one of history’s forgotten fronts
Take up arms in humanity's darkest hour in Hearts of Iron IV: Waking the Tiger
Hearts of Iron IV: Waking the Tiger includes:

Chinese National Focuses: Divided and under
threat, China has great reserves of manpower and diplomatic flexibility

Chain of Command: Unite your armies under a
field marshal who can take advantage of the many skills of the generals
under his direction.

Decisions and Missions: Historical
decisions and national missions give you new places to spend Political
Power, as you deal with domestic politics or start special projects.

Commanders’ Traits and Abilities:
Commanders’’ traits can now unlock powerful Command Power abilities,
allowing great flexibility and creativity.

Updated Axis Focus Trees: Alternate
historical paths for the German Reich and Imperial Japan, including
parliamentary rule in Japan and the return of the Kaiser to Germany.

Acclimatization: Over time, troops will
learn how to survive in the desert or harsh winters, giving these veterans
an edge on the battlefield.

And More: Capturing battlefield equipment,
and a revitalized air war system that has room for Volunteer air wings.

As usual, the expansion will be released alongside a major game update that
is freely available to all Hearts of Iron IV players.

Out of the Park Developments is gearing up for the promised March 22nd launch of
Out of the Park Baseball 19. To pave the way, they offer
a new trailer to show
off the new 3D engine they
announced is coming to the sports simulation sequel. The game will now show
players pitching, hitting, fielding, running the bases, and hopefully adjusting
their crotches and spitting. Those who want to step up to the plate early can
preorder the game from the
OOTP Baseball Web Store to get a discount and a three-day headstart on its
release. Continue here to read the full story.

Happy International Women's Day! I celebrated by allowing MrsBlue to sleep in
while I shoveled snow. I would have left it for later, but the contractors were
due bright and early, and I needed to clear a path for them. It seems like we
got somewhere near the promised foot of snow, but it was all compacted down into
a few inches that was quite heavy. But it came up well, and I managed to survive
the experience with my back intact and my heart still ticking, so I'm making a
note here, huge success.